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Writing Style Fingerprint Tool Easily Fooled
Urchin writes "Some of the techniques used by literary detectives and courts of law to identify the authorship of text are easily fooled, say US researchers. They found that non-professional writers could hide their identity from 'stylometric' techniques by writing in the style of novelist Cormac McCarthy. Stylometric methods have been used in a number of high-profile legal cases in recent decades, including the 'Unabomber' trial. 'We would strongly suggest that courts examine their methods of stylometry against the possibility of adversarial attacks,' say the researchers."
Some analysis of handwriting can be useful. In forgery, for instance, a signature can show as false when compared to an authentic one by the presence of a "forger's tremor", because the forger must proceed more slowly to produce the signature than the person to whom it properly belongs.
If the methods a stylometry analysis uses are known (and they couldn't very well be a secret to hold up in court), of course you can game them.
From TFA: "Each volunteer was then asked to write a description of their neighbourhood in a way that masked their personal style, before writing a further passage in the style of novelist and playwright Cormac McCarthy." [...] "the techniques consistently identified Cormac McCarthy as the author of the imitations of his work."
So, yes, the whole bloody experiment was precisely about disguising your style as someone else, and no, it did not give the tests any reasonable doubt. People trying to imitate Cormac McCarthy were consistently identified as Cormac McCarthy by the stylistic analysis techniques. It doesn't get more clear cut than this, really.
So, yes, it is very possible for an average Joe Sixpack to incriminate someone else, if they so choose.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.